KEMEA Yamaha Official MX2 Race Report, GP18 Assen, Netherlands

KEMEA Yamaha Official MX2 Race Report, GP18 Assen, Netherlands

The iconic cathedral of speed hosted the penultimate round of the 2017 world championship last weekend. On the legendary track once again tons of sand were put in just one week to get a rough track with perfect viewing conditions for the crowd. Heavy rainfall in the week and on Saturday made the track really rough but luckily the rain faded and left Assen dry for raceday.

In qualifying on Saturday Brent finished the race in 12th position, but got penalized 5 places for not passing sound control. Alvin crossed the line in 14th but moved up to 13th with the penalty.

Dragracing past the grandstands almost like the motoGP bikes do, the KEMEA riders completed the first lap in 15th and 16th place. Brent soon pulled over to the pits lacking power in his engine and left the race. Alvin moved up a couple of spots and finished in 13th.

In the second moto both Brent and Alvin were outside the top 10 in the opening stages of the race, but they worked their way up on the rough and tricky track to finish 10th and 11th. Alvin got 12th in the day classification and remains 14th in the championship. Brent got 14th overall but holds on to 10th overall. Despite having missed two rounds Benoit is still fourth in the championship.

Alvin Ostlund: ” I had some troubles all weekend long to find places to pass, and with the starts not being the best it was hard to make up ground. My start in the second moto was good though but I took some bad lines in the first lap and lost several places. Near the end I started to get a good feeling though and could make some passes, but overall I’m not happy on the weekend.”

Brent Vandoninck: “ Definitely not satisfied with the results this weekend. After the penalty on Saturday I was really motivated and feeling good on Sunday. In the first moto I soon had to pull over with technical issues. In the second moto I was feeling pretty good on the bike and making up places after a bad start. I was closing in on the guys in front of me but towards the end I had some troubles getting through the back markers and made some mistakes myself. The speed was good but once again the result isn’t. Anyway, 1 more to go next week and I’ll do my best to finish the season on a good note.”

Kemea Yamaha started with two riders - Ben Watson and Jago Geerts - in the international race in Hawkstone Park. De third rider of the team, Vsevolod Brylyakov, preferred to stay longer in Sardinia for extra trainingsessions.
Both Watson and Geerts can look back on a solid race in Hawkstone Park. Watson sent his YZ250F in both MX2-races to a fifth place, good for a sixth spot overall. The 17-year-old Jago Geerts also put in a strong performance. Even though he suffered arm pump, the youngster finished ninth overall in the MX2 (after a tenth and eighth place in the heats).
Also in the Superfinale, with the best MXGP riders, the Kemea boys showed very good speed. Watson finished ninth, Geerts twelfth.
Next weekend, the Kemea Team will travel to France, to take part in the last race of the preseason in Lacapelle Marival. It's the last test before the start of the world championship, on March 4, in Neuquen, Argentina.

Team manager Marnicq Bervoets
"The results were already better than in Riola Sardo. There was a lot more regularity in the performance of our boys. That is of course positive. Watson rode two solid MX2 races, but was not yet able to fight for the top three. He showed his best level in the Superfinal. His last ten minutes were brilliant. If he had showed that speed in de MX2-race, he would have finished on the podium. We can see Watson has a lot of potential. But Ben has to be more self-confident. Geerts was also pretty strong in Hawkstone Park. You can see that Jago has a lot to offer. He is of course very young, it's up to us to make him grow steadily. Unfortunately: he was again struggling with arm pump. So he continues to work closely with Kemea's physiotherapist. "